The February 2019 stats are in for the Salem Airport, and spoiler alert, they are cold! 😉 I will have to do some digging (so don’t quote me on this one), but I believe this month broke a long string of warmer than normal months going back to last March!!
Temperature:
Warmest high temp was 54° February 1st
Coldest high temp was 37° February 5th
Warmest low temp was 41° February 1st and 12th
Coldest low temp was 24° February 6th
6 days with high temperatures below 40°.
16 days with lows at or below freezing.
Only 2 days reached 50°. More on that later.
4 days above normal.
2 day right at normal.
22 days below normal.
February averaged 4.39°F below normal.
Precipitation:
Precipitation fell 23 days.
5 dry days.
The wettest day was February 11th with 1.15” of rain. A new daily record for that day.
We ended the month with 7.09” of precipitation which is a whopping 155% of our normal February total of 4.56”.
Snowfall
Snowfall is tricky due to the sad fact that Salem no longer keeps official snowfall records and has not since 1995 “insert extremely sad face.” The National Weather Service (to the best of my knowledge) relies on public reports from around the area when it comes to snowfall. I tried finding the average of the various city-wide snow reports (including my own) to come up with our monthly total.
As you know, Salem avoided any sort of big snowstorm. Instead, through the course of February we had several minor snow events all adding up to a monthly total of 6.25” of snow (remember that’s the average from all parts of the city). My home (at 475’ in elevation) located in south Salem was at the higher end with just over 8”. Hard to believe we got that much when it only fell 1 or 2 inches at a time and it usually melted away by lunchtime.
Regardless, it all added up to an average of 6.25” giving us our snowiest February since 2014.
Summary
February 2019 goes down in the books as a much colder than normal month (4.39° below normal) with only 2 days with highs at or above 50°. I’ve charted out February days reaching at least 50° over the past 11 years. You can see just how remarkable it is to have so few 50+ degree days.
February 2019 also goes down as a very wet month with 155% of our normal February precip. Additionally, February 2019 was a very big month for the mountain snowpack with several feet of snow falling in the Cascades. As of today, Hoodoo ski area has a 105 inch base with a majority of that falling just over the past 5 weeks. Overall, a very chilly and wet month!
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